Weeks of wandering passed as Nakai and the wood elf child made their way through the Drakwald forest. The Kroxigor couldn’t communicate with her, not only because she was apparently too young to have learnt speech but also…because he’s a crocodile. Still the two clung together, the elf happy for the safety and hunting he provided while he somewhat enjoyed her company if truth be told. It certainly made a difference from the usual sycophants who insisted on following him wherever he went.

Eventually, the two made their way beyond the forest and found themselves on the outskirts of Carroburg, a minor city with a truly torrid history. Once the capital of the Drakwald province, the state fell to the Beast-hordes way back in 1414 IC. Since then, the humans had made efforts to rebuild the city, though its neighbouring threats meant this place would be quicker mistaken for a fortress than a city in the traditional sense for its sizeable garrison. The unlikely duo decided to approach the city, with Nakai believing it ought to be a safe place to leave the girl before he continued on his mission.

The Kroxigor and the Wood Elf stepped forward toward the gates of the city only for them to open up and reveal unwelcoming hosts. An entire regiment of greatswords marched forward to receive the outsiders led by a tall bearded man riding a horse with the crest of a lion built into his helm. This was all a bit much for Nakai. He only wanted to leave the girl somewhere he knew she could be safe, he never planned for his mission to be interrupted by Imperial soldiers.

The Kroxigor considered turning back, heading back into the treeline of the Drakwald to drop the girl somewhere less populated – only to be surprised by the sight of a group of marksmen stepping out from the trees, armed with bows and clad in strange garments crafted from wool and fur. Funny, Nakai couldn’t even remember the last time someone managed to follow him unnoticed, let alone an entire squadron.

As Nakai pondered to himself, the man with the lion-crested helm approached and spoke.

“Why have you come here, Beast? Surely you should know we do not serve at your kind’s behest?” General Aldred von Carroburg suggested as he looked up to the crocodile who towered over himself and his steed.

In response, Nakai simply reached upwards, picked the wood elf child that was clinging to his scaled back up and placed her on the ground before gently nudging her to walk towards the humans.

….

◙ Laugh React: The child obeyed the kroxigor’s instruction and walked past the general toward the city’s gates.

Confused by what was going on, the humans allowed the child to wander past them into the city before the mighty ancient kroxigor turned around and departed without so much as a gesture to say goodbye. The girl was safe, it was time for Nakai to return to his mission, to return to travelling South.

….

(Prelude to all other react options)

Having been placed on the ground, the child took a step toward the humans before immediately turning around and clinging to the kroxigor’s leg, refusing to let go.

General Aldred was about to ask what was happening when the lead marksman, a moustached figure clad in furs and wielding an amber bow interjected that these two weren’t the only targets they were tracking!

Off in this distance above the treeline a fearsome bird-like creature squawked loudly, announcing its presence to the people of Carroburg. As it flew closer the marksmen picked out a few more features. Feathered wings but with a scaled body and multiple sineous tails protruding from its behind meant it could be only one thing: a Cockatrice!

The cockatrice descended toward the people at the gates of Carroburg as all around them the ground began to shudder with the sound of encroaching hooves until finally a flock of minotaurs emerged from the tree-line led by the Brass Bull itself, Taurox. The dreaded bray-shaman the Harbinger, which revealed itself to be riding the cockatrice, had tracked the Ancient Kroxigor down and brought its entire brayherd with it in an effort to reclaim the wood elf child once and for all. The minotaurs were only the first to emerge but were shortly followed by everything from chaos spawns, a pair of cygors, chaotic warhounds, a ghorgon, bestigors, gors, ungor raiders and even an additional ancillary force of khorngors had arrived in Taurox’s honour.

As the opposing army of thousands emerged from the Drakwald to besiege the city from all sides, General Aldred gave the order to sally back behind the city gates. Carroburg had fallen to the might of the beast hordes once before, he would not countenance the same fate befalling the city today.
The Imperials and the wood elf child ran back behind the city walls while the noble kroxigor ancient stood firm to receive the beastmen’s charge. The cygors were first, chucking nearby boulders and tree stumps at the kroxigor which he proceeded to evade as he charged past them straight into the thralls of the mighty brass creature, Taurox. Nakai gained the early advantage, placing his feet firm to absorb the minotaur’s charge before striking the head of his mace against the brass minotaur’s cold, hardened dome.

As this was happening the Imperials were positioning themselves inside the city walls: the Carroburg Greatswords lined up around the gates while scores of halberdiers, swordsmen and spearmen came to their side, General Aldred rallied the city’s cavalry contingency, the huntsmen under Wulfheart’s leadership joined the city’s garrison of crossbowmen and gunners atop the city’s walls while mortars and great cannons fired their first salvos.

However, despite the empire’s initial ranged advantage this proceeded to wither as soon as the beast hordes reached closer to the city walls as rather than climbing the walls, or attempting to breach the gates, their Ghorgon simply ran straight toward a stretch of the city’s wall at top speed, smashing into it head-first to create a breach for the beast hordes to storm through as it passed out from the impact. The imperial infantry sought to plug the gap as they engaged in melee with the gors, ungors, minotaurs, khorngors and chaos spawns while the imperial cavalry took the opportunity to emerge from the city gates and flank the beasts from the side.

Notwithstanding, the Harbinger merely cackled in ecstacy from the perch of its mount, hovering high above the range of the walls’ gunners and archers atop its cockatrice as it called on the Viletide spell to serve its will as swarms of spiders, centipedes and slug-beetles crept up from the surface below to pick at the imperials’ necks and wriggle their way beneath their armour.

As the imperials fought their way through the horde of beasts under the deluge of swarming bugs and arachnids, the duel between Nakai and Taurox continued. Despite winning the fight at first, Taurox was quickly gaining the upper hand thanks to the aid of his underlings which though Nakai could swat them away like flees, were ever-useful in pinning the kroxigor down nonetheless such that the minotaur could charge in and out of combat at its leisure.

Nakai felt himself being bogged down more and more by Taurox and its allies while events turned for the worse upon the city’s breached battlements. Ungors were beginning to make it past the city’s ranks of spears, halberds and greatswords in order to run up onto the walls and engage the archers in melee. Meanwhile the Gors were pilling further and further onto the infantry down below.

“Hold the line! Hold for Sigmar!” General Aldred cried, mere moments before being slammed off his steed’s saddle by a charging chaos spawn. The horrific creature stood over the dismounted general, about to finish him off for good.

….
◙ Angry React: The chaos spawn reached down with its tentacles and swiped at the general before cracking his neck within the monster’s embrace.

From there things weren’t looking too well elsewhere either. Despite his hardy scales, Nakai knew he could only resist so many of blows from Taurox’s Rune-tortured axes. Meanwhile the same could not be said the other way around. No matter how many hits he landed on the metal minotaur, he had yet to actually wound the beast for though the metal dented on occasion, it never bent enough to let the doombull bleed.

And so as the battle went on, the Beastmen only pressed their advantage. More and more of the Harbinger’s underlings made it through the breached wall where they proceeded to run rampant. Moreover, this chaos put the Imperial military in absolute disarray, especially now that their general had been gored. Thus as Markus Wulfheart was desperately trying to fend off the bestial invaders on the wall, he scarcely had a chance to defend himself from the claws of the the Harbinger’s cockatrice mount as it sliced through his chest and knocked his body off the ramparts. Markus’ shattered his kneecaps upon impact, resulting in a slow painful death as he was left to bleed out beneath the city’s gatehouse. The last thing he ever saw was the Harbinger taking the wood elf child and dragging her away into the clutches of its mount as his minions razed the city all around him.

That just left Nakai’s fate. The ancient kroxigor put up an admirable fight, slamming his mace against the doombull’s chest and shoulders as hard as he could but in the end, the Doombull simply took those hits and dished them back out, widly flailing with his axes as they slashed against one scale to another until finally, Taurox’s route to victory made itself clear as the ghorgon which had assaulted the city’s wall woke up and joined him in his duel. Now forced to fight both the world’s fiercest minotaur and a gargantuan behemoth with 6 limbs on his own, Nakai found himself overwhelmed as the two beasts dealt blow after blow until Taurox pierced his scales for the first time. The doombull pounced, striking more and more aggressively alongside its giant ally in an effort to expand Nakai’s wound until finally, Nakai collapsed from a respiratory breakdown, having suffered so many brutal wounds.

Once Nakai was finally dead, Taurox carved the kroxigor’s body open and brought their remains to the burning city. He gave the Harbinger the pair of Nakai’s lungs to be worn as a trophy round its neck while Taurox personally mounted the Wanderer’s skull upon its own brass hide, a symbol of its prowess to all future foes as it joined his herd in destroying the city once and for all.
….
◙ Wow React: General Aldred called out for help but his efforts were left in vain as the chaos spawn reached down and smothered him to death with its tentacles.

The battle was going terribly. Ungors ransacked the city ramparts and destroyed both artillery encampments and archers alike while below the Gors and other Beasts of Depravity stormed into the city to pillage and plunder.

The battle was lost, Nakai knew that now but he had a duty. Protect the girl and get away from here before the Harbinger could fold her within its clutches. Thus, where perhaps Nakai could have bested the Slaughterhorn properly had the battle been allowed to stretch on longer, the Kroxigor instead had to settle with an advantageous skirmish as he used his mace to bash one of Taurox’s knees out of place, rendering the doombull incapable of adequately pursuing Nakai as he stormed off back in the direction of the city.

Nakai ran on all fours as quick as he could past any Beastmen or simply through them should any have attempted to impede his movement until he finally made his way back to Carroburg where the Harbinger’s cockatrice was about to land such that its rider could capture the child. Alas, the Harbinger would not claim his prize today as Nakai yanked him off his mount and tossed him a few feet away, creating just enough movement and time to hoist the Wood Elf onto his scaled back such that the two could escape together.

Carroburg was lost, the Beastmen had won yet even then, the Harbinger still wouldn’t get what it originally came for. By the time Taurox had shrugged off the pain of its knee injury, Nakai was long gone.
….
….
….

(Prelude to Sad, Love and Laugh react)

General Aldred crashed onto the ground below and gazed up. The spawn towered over him, its mess of tentacles and deformed appendages rearing over to smother him. However, just as all seemed lost, the spawn suddenly backed away, compelled to stumble back as the wood elf child trode forward to protect Aldred. The General looked up in amazement as the child stood over him and though he couldn’t possibly comprehend why this was happening, he was certainly happy not to become spawn-feed.

But it didn’t stop there. Not only was the chaos spawn backing away from the child, so too were the ungors who formed themselves into a circle around her and the general yet they refused to actually close in and strike. Indeed, whatever aura the child had was incredibly powerful, for even the spiders and centipedes summoned by the Harbinger’s viletide spell turned on their masters.

General Aldred stood to attention and re-joined the fight, swiping fiercely with his blade alongside his troops as the bestial horde had to not only deal with the Empire’s soldiers but were also fighting a losing battle as their own chaos spawns rampaged through their forces and swarms of insects and arachnids bit at their gors’ flesh.

The Imperial soldiers pressed on as a second contingency of Imperial Knights barreled their way into the backs of the Bestial horde which was firmly grouped up around the city’s wall breach. In and out the cavalry hammered the Beastmen, causing their morale to waver as even a few mighty Minotaurs and Khorngors fell to cavalry charges. As the Harbinger looked on in disbelief as its herd’s leadership collapsed, the Bray Shaman turned its gaze to the Wood Elf child who’d been responsible for turning its spawns against it in the first place. He attempted to strike the girl down with a blast of death magic.

Miscast!

The death spell exploded in the Bray Shaman’s face and its cockatrice descended from the heavens right into the Huntsmarshall’s range. Before he could regain control of his mount, the Harbinger was hit by an arrow to the head, sending it toppling off his mount to its final death.

The Beastial horde’s morale shattered as the gors, ungors, khorngors, minotaurs and others that had endured the Imperial hammer and anvil tactics turned to the forest and fled, all while being pursued by Imperial knights. Indeed, the ghorgon which had broken through the city wall in the first place woke up from its slumber to see its allies fleeing, the cygors returning to the treeline and a battalion of spearmen heading straight for it!

Even Taurox was dismayed by the loss of his tribe’s favourite shaman though that didn’t break him just yet. Neither he nor Nakai would ever consider fleeing a duel until a victor was clear. The great beasts continued to fight it out, delivering blow after blow against one another. The minotaur attempted to overwhelm the kroxigor, striking from above with its dual axes to pierce Nakai’s scales when Nakai darted forward, striking the minotaur’s thigh before knocking it on its back. Nakai brought his mace down, attempting to hit the gaping hole in Taurox’s armoured flesh around his throat though the minotaur responded, turning on its side to avoid the blow. However, just as Taurox turned Nakai snapped his jaws open and enveloped the Bloodbeast’s hooves within the grips of his teeth before attempting to turn the bullgor over into a full death roll.

Taurox spun wildly with his leg trapped inside the kroxigor’s jaws as its teeth scraped against his brass hide though fortunately, the bull’s blessed flesh shouldered most of the damage for him. Realising it couldn’t break free, Taurox changed tactic and encroached on the kroxigor’s territory instead, using Nakai’s tightened position as the Brazen One lifted its axes and sent them crashing down on Nakai’s head.

Nakai held firm, absorbing the blow of the axes as it moved its jaws further up Taurox’s body over the bull’s knee, causing it to below in rage as it found itself more and more restricted. Taurox’s fate worsened from here as between blows against the Lizardman it spotted Markus Wulfheart and his accompanying huntsmen coming straight for him.

Taurox realised it couldn’t win. Nakai couldn’t beat him either but with his body locked in place as it currently was, Taurox had no way of shielding his throat from the huntsmen’s arrows. Thus, in one final desperate move for survival, Taurox raised his axes high and brought them crashing down into his own knee!

If Taurox couldn’t break free of the kroxigor’s grip around its lower leg, it would simply remove that lower leg. The brass bull struck again, roaring in anger for every blow it dealt to its ravaged body as the huntsmen grew closer and closser until finally, the combined snapping power of Nakai’s jaw and Taurox’s axes were enough to sever the metal connective tissue keeping the Brazen One’s leg together. The leg split at the knee and the metal lump dislodged itself into Nakai’s jaw, joking the kroxigor as it did so while Taurox turned and limped into the forest to safety, only missing certain death at Markus Wulfheart’s hands by the barest of seconds.

….
◙ Sad React: The day was won. The Imperial soldiers cheered in adulation as the remaining Beasts of Chaos retreated for the treeline after their limping doombull leader.

However, as the state troopers below celebrated their victory over the savage hordes, Markus Wulfheart and his huntsmen made his way back to General Aldred by the city gates..

As the Huntmarshall saluted to his superior’s presence, General Aldred gave him one single last order.

“If that beast takes a single step closer, I want you to loose every missile we have against it.” Aldred commanded, pointing at the Ancient Kroxigor who was still choking on the brass lump of leg in its throat.

“Sir?”

“Huntsmarshall, that is an order. It brought the beasts here, we cannot risk a second assault and I will sleep well tonight with that thing’s hide hanging upon my chamber’s walls.” the general instructed.

“Very well.”
And so, as the soldiers below thought the time for peace had come, Wulfheart returned to the city ramparts with his huntsmen, the city’s own archers, crossbowmen and handgunners plus the artillery crews on the walls and together, they all readied their weapons once more. Once Nakai finally spat out the broken chunk of brass leg, the Kroxigor turned toward the city gates to check if the wood elf child was safe just as Markus Wulfheart loosed an arrow from his bow.

The amber projectile tore through the air and struck its prey, piercing the kroxigor’s left shoulder. Nakai roared in pain before turning to a sprint, running toward the city in desperation only to be struck again as the city’s ordinances opened fire on him. The Kroxigor waded his way through the skirmish as bullets and arrows tore through him like a blizzard and bombardments exploded all around him. His wounds tore open, his scales withered and Nakai collapsed onto the ground with over two dozen arrows sticking out of his back not to mention several bullet holes that had torn through his body.

As the general sent out a unit of halberdiers to retrieve the kroxigor’s corpse, he turned to one of his aids and commanded them to make sure the “Elfling” was detained until a representative of the church could arrive to conduct an exorcism.
….
◙ Love React: The general and his soldiers cheered in celebration after the Harbinger’s mangled body hit the surface and his herd fled for the forests. Nakai attempted to block the Bloodbeast’s escape but to no avail as he continued to choke on Taurox’s discarded hoof.

Once he finally, spat the hoof out and was confident that the day had been won, the kroxigor returned to the city and was allowed to enter the city via the breach the Beastmen had made.

Upon entering, he saw a group of swordsmen near the city gates with raised weapons around the wood elf child, clearly afraid of whatever sorcery she had used to turn the Harbinger’s beasts against their own. However, the girl ran past them when she saw the ancient Lizardman enter the city and wrapped her arms around one of its legs as the General approached Nakai. The general stared up at the Kroxigor’s face for a moment, noticing in particular a large gash on the left side of its head where it had clearly been struck by Taurox’s rune-tortured axes.

However, where the general initially frowned at the Lizard’s presence, that soon turned to the rarest of smiles. The general thanked Nakai for his aid and the duo of kroxigor and wood elf turned to leave Carroburg once and for all.

As Nakai and the child set off South once more, Wulfheart asked General Aldred if it was wise to let them go and whether they should have tried to learn about the girl’s powers.

“Whatever is happening between those two, I want no part in it. Now let them go, we have plenty to get on with before our next incursion with the children of the Drakwald.” the General concluded.